India Insight

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The year can’t finish soon enough, as far as Bollywood is concerned. The world’s biggest film industry by output struggled to churn out hits, with only a handful of films managing to make money at the box office due to an increasingly picky audience.

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When Indian-born journalist Salil Tripathi visited Dhaka University’s Jagannath Hall in Bangladesh two years ago, he noticed an epitaph that had “PAKISTANI” etched in bold on a memorial dedicated to students who were killed in the 1971 war of independence.

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Priyanka Chopra might be one of the most sought-after stars in India right now, but she has set her sights far away across the Atlantic. After cutting a single with rapper Pitbull, singing at the NFL, and being signed on by the clothing brand Guess as their top model, the 32-year-old actress is all set to star in an American television series this fall, developed around her by the ABC TV network.

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(Any opinions expressed here are those of the author and not of Thomson Reuters)

First things first. All those guesses about who PK is were right after all. Aamir Khan’s bulging eyes, pointy ears and unblinking stares do mean that he is an alien from a planet far, far away, who lands on earth to “research” us human beings.

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Karan Johar calls him a legend and a genius, the only filmmaker in the country who is capable of achieving the perfect blend of commercial and meaningful cinema. But a laughing Rajkumar Hirani shrugs it all off. The 52-year-old, who is as big a brand as some of Bollywood’s A-list actors, is also one of the highest paid in the industry.

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Russian President Vladimir Putin is coming to India this week to meet Prime Minister Narendra Modi and to discuss ways to improve relations. Moscow and New Delhi enjoyed warm ties during the days of the Soviet Union, when India was a member of a non-aligned bloc of nations. The friendship recently has become strained as India relies more on U.S. and French companies to meet its defence needs, something that chafes Russia as it deals with sanctions from western nations over Ukraine. Russia meanwhile has alarmed Indian public opinion with a recent visit by its defence minister to Pakistan. Russia’s ambassador Alexander Kadakin, a veteran diplomat first posted to New Delhi more than 40 years ago, discussed Putin’s visit at a press conference on Monday. Here are some of his remarks.

The 2012 Delhi bus rape case and an ever-longer list of rapes and murders in India have prompted politicians and public figures in India to cite plenty of implausible reasons why rape happens and why men brutalise women or portray women in ways that suggest they had it coming. Many people, when speaking out, tend to minimise the crime or rationalise it in ways that sound ludicrous to many. We created this list of such comments more than a year ago, but it seems like it’s time to add some new entries.

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(Any opinions expressed here are those of the author and not of Thomson Reuters)

There’s a scene in the rock music mock documentary “This Is Spinal Tap” in which Christopher Guest, playing the brainless guitarist Nigel Tufnel, shows off his amps to a documentary filmmaker. One special amp, he says, is so loud that its dials don’t just go up to 10, they go to 11.

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(Any opinions expressed here are those of the author and not of Thomson Reuters)

“Sulemani Keeda”, a slacker comedy about two struggling writers in Bollywood, seems like an inside joke that only a few people are let in on. Produced on a shoe-string budget, it almost seems like the director is describing his own struggling days through the film. And while it might be an engaging story, most people may not be able to relate to it.